Thursday, September 19, 2013

Inara vs the NEW BABY (PG for mild bloody bits)

Hello everyone.

Some of you probably don't know but Maria gave birth to a little girl (4245 grams/9lb 5 oz) on Monday at 7:38 pm GMT +1. We arrived at the hospital at 6:45 and she was out fast. So fast the midwife was caught off guard. Good stuff. The water didn't break until JUST as the baby was pushed out. In fact the bag of waters was largely intact when they tossed it. I would have probably liked to keep it with the placenta but that didn't seem to be an option. Who knows what that liquid could have been used for? Something medicy I'm sure.

Done in under and hour.

Still not happy about it.

Language lesson time. In Sweden they call the placenta a moderkaka. Directly translated this means mother cake. Look at the picture below. Does that look like a cake to you? Perhaps a meat pie from Sweeney Todd, but not a cake.

Not a cake. Yet.

Oh warning the above picture may be strong for young viewers. Not really though, I've seen what they have on TV in the States and this ain't nothing. I swear I won't let grandma's dog eat some of this one. Probably.

You may have noticed that I keep referring to the baby as the baby. This is because the baby has not been officially named. I unofficially named her UNNAMED BABY yesterday but there is some resistance to this name. Not from UNNAMED BABY.

Update: Was told to stop lobbying for my name choice or else. Every where name choice was used it has been very artfully replaced. You likely won't even notice. If you have already seen the name that shall not be named, forget it. For now.

About 12 hours after UNNAMED BABY was born we pointed out that she was jaundiced to a nurse and explained that her sister had a similar condition. They said that was normal and not to worry. 9 hours after that they took her blood 'cus she looked jaundiced. At which point I'd like to interject no friggin crap. 3 hours later they ran in and setup a UV light, exactly like what had happened to Inara. This condition, explained simply, is because Maria has inferior O+ blood that is jealous of blood that contains N acetyl-galactosamine and/or an extra galatose protein. In this case UNNAMED BABY has N acetyl-galactosamine (for Inara it was cus she had an extra galatose).

UNNAMED BABY prior to the needling and feeding tube. She looks pretty dang chill here (in the I wouldn't want to meet that in a dark alley kinda way).

They decided it was pretty serious and took her down to a special room where she could be under two special lights. They also decided she needed and IV. Three separate people preceded to break every vein in UNNAMED BABY's hand, arm, leg and feet. As you can imagine there is nothing more heart warming than watching three old ladies dig at your daughter with a needle for 45 minutes. They gave up, took some blood from one many open holes they'd made and called it a night. No, wait they didn't, they then decided that UNNAMED BABY needed to eat. She was understandably a little upset by the nearly hour long stab fest and refused to take the scoop feeding that is preferred in Sweden so the nurses ran a tub down her nose and throat into her stomach. Again this was a touching sight with all the gagging and force feeding of formula. They topped it off by wrapping her head in gauze to protect them from the UV lights. As you can see (above) this is awesome!

These eyes have known pain. Revenge is likely being plotted...in the form of horrible, horrible blow out diapers.

The next morning they decided to give the IV another go and burst a few more veins before calling it and just stabbing her in her heels to take the blood. After enjoying that I went home to help Inara who was refusing to go to daycare. Late that evening apparently the bilirubin levels (the trouble maker) had dropped, but not enough. This morning the levels were good enough for her to be removed from the lights but not enough to go home. I'm actually waiting on word from Maria on how that test went to see if they can come home because I had to go home to take care of Inara.

Update: She is coming home.

Another item of minor note is that there seems to be some hostility between the childcare ward and the birthing ward of the hospital. This displayed itself when they talked about letting UNNAMED BABY stay up in the birthing ward but that she is still being fed through her nose tube a bit. The boss nurse of the birthing ward (who just showed up today) said to the childcare ward they wouldn't help with this because, "The children here are healthy. If she needs to be taken care of you will have to send a nurse." When I left there was currently one baby staying in the birthing ward, UNNAMED BABY. There were no less than 6 nurses sitting in the birthing break room while the childcare ward was over capacity. I guess you gots to protect your turf, infants be damned.

UPDATE: They REALLY dislike each other. They are all nice to us but they REALLY dislike each other.

Another interesting thing was that the Swedes are rabidly free feed advocates. This means letting the baby feed whenever it wants. We are not free feeders. Baby has gots to work for their food. Anyways, this means they are by extension anti-pacifier. When the boss nurse (from above) noticed we had a pacifier she expressed her displeasure, made worse by the fact that the folks in childcare ward (seemingly her sworn enemies) had even given us one. Maria mentioned this to the childcare nurse in passing during a checkup (which happens every three hours) the nurse agreed that pacifiers were bad and took OUR pacifier from OUR daughter. Not even the one they'd given us. I was displeased when I found out but Maria had already corrected it, or so she said. We will see if Maria gets back what is UNNAMED BABY's. Totally got it back.

You may be wondering where the name of the post comes in. Well Inara and the baby did meet very briefly. The most interesting thing from that meeting for Inara was the feeding tube and that the baby had pooped and I got some of that poop on my arm. Which was sticky and green black. A more accurate description of the meeting would have been the interlude to looking at the fish in the aquarium again, cus little sisters, meh and fish are amazing. They seriously are, look on Youtube.

10 comments:

Watching for the results of the guessing contest. Baby belongs in grandmas arms, not at the mercy of nurses who don't love her. It's making me crazy that she's being hurt, even if necessary. Also, Inara needs her own fish.

Congrats on the beautiful baby! Sounds like a bit of a rough start on life! I've been looking all week for an update and thinking that Maria would be going crazy waiting but I'm glad to see that she was born earlier in the week. Hope they make it home healthy soon!

About

We're a Swedish/American family of four currently living on an island in the Baltic Sea. We talk and laugh a lot and sometimes fight. This blog was created so that loved ones both near and far could stay up to date on what we're doing. I also sometimes write about things that I find important or inspiring. The result is a mixture of mostly sweet with the occasional hint of bitter.

Us

Inara Loretta

Born June 23, 2011.

Enjoys: Singing and dictating when and what her parents can sing. Drawing, stickers and books. Also running around in circles screaming at the top of her lungs. Telling stories, tickles, spinning and hide-and-seek. Her little sister (as long as she isn't getting too close to her toys). Vehicles and animals of all shapes and sizes. Hugs and kisses and making us laugh until we cry (and sometimes the other way around).

Alba Rose

Born September 16, 2013

Enjoys: Her big sister, peek-a-boo, babbling and rolling around. Also bubbles popping in the bathtub and stuffed animals being dropped on her by Inara.